


the same ballpark

by womanaction



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Foot Fetish, Quentin Tarantino References, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 04:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11844114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: Abed, Annie, and gratuitous Tarantino references.





	the same ballpark

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should put this out there that I don't have a foot fetish (words I've never had to type on a fic before, haha), but this idea seemed apropos and I couldn't shake it.

Annie steps out of the shower and wraps her towel around herself. She scrubs at the mirror glass and sighs, a little ruefully. Ever since she started her new job – which is _great_ , and exciting, and most importantly comes attached to a nice-sized paycheck – she hasn’t felt, well, entirely clean. She’s trying not to dig too deep into it, but a voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Britta is stumbling through a monologue about metaphors and cycles of abuse and giving other people the means for addiction, and, well. The Britta in her head probably isn’t too far off.

(Unlike the real Britta, who for all she knows could be back in New York by now, or some other crazy place. That’s something Annie always kind of admired about her, that ability to just pick up and _go_ , break the cycle. But Annie’s not that kind of person and besides, Troy and Abed need her. She needs them to need her.)

She throws on her pajamas and pads into the living room, cringing slightly. Her cute new pharma rep shoes turned out to be a little too tight, but so is money for the time being. Abed is already in his pajamas, staring blankly at the television. _Friends_ is on. His gaze flits over to her as she walks in and he gives her one of those familiar little smiles. She hobbles over to sit on the arm of the chair, leaning back into the cushions as she realizes that her back hurts too.

Abed glances at her again, then back at the TV. Back at her, back at the TV. Down at her bare feet, back up to her face. “Are you okay?” he asks evenly.

“Oh, yeah,” she says dismissively. “I’ll be fine. My shoes are just a little too small.”

He seems to process the words she said and the words she didn’t – _Don’t worry about me, I’ll get used to it, I didn’t think we could spare the money for new shoes_ – and looks away again.

She looks around. “Where’s Troy?” she asks, but at that same moment Abed is asking her a question and she can’t make out what he’s saying.

“Sorry,” he says unnecessarily.

“Where’s Troy?”

“With his family.”

“Oh.” She knows things have been a little tense between Troy and his family since they graduated. He hasn’t said as much, but she thinks they’re disappointed. She gets that. She sent a graduation announcement to her mom, the fancy kind with the little name card inside, and never heard back. “What were you saying?”

Abed doesn’t quite meet her gaze, and it takes him a little too long to respond. When he finally speaks again, it’s blunt, but his eyes are trained on Jennifer Aniston, not her. “Do you want me to rub your feet?”

Annie feels her cheeks heat, although she isn’t quite sure why. It’s an oddly intimate suggestion, but she knows Abed doesn’t mean anything by it.

She doesn’t think he does, anyway.

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, absurdly, because of course he doesn’t _have_ to. The look he gives her says as much.

He keeps looking at her, like he’s waiting for her permission, but it’s weird, this whole situation is weird, everything since graduation is weird, so she says, “I mean…if you want to,” and gingerly pivots her body so her feet sit awkwardly in his lap. She wants to cringe right out of her body, because _God,_ Annie, do you have to make everything uncomfortable? And to make things worse, her subconscious pulls up the greatest hits collection of Annie Ruining Things With Jeff Winger, Former-and-Once Again Esq., and she briefly tries to sink into the earth. Then Abed’s slender fingers wrap around her right foot. Her body somehow finds a way to tense further, but then he gently massages her arch and she’s trying to melt into the floor in a whole different way.

It feels weird to watch him – she just wants to apologize for taking up space, yank her feet back away and tuck them under her body, but it also feels _so good_ – so she turns to the TV and watches _Friends_ with far more rapt attention than it has ever deserved. She could probably count the pores on Matthew Perry’s face.

“This is one of my favorite episodes,” Abed says conversationally, like this is something normal they do every day.

Annie eyes him without turning her head. Despite the intensity of her gaze on the TV, she has no idea what episode this is or what’s going on. “Yeah,” she says, hoping she only sounds shaky in her head. A tingle runs up her spine. “It’s a good one.”

“Other foot?”

She complies, maybe a little too eagerly. His hands are very soft, but firm in just the right way, and even her internal monologue is getting to be too much but she can't stop this runaway train.

Abed’s hands are always warm, too, something she learned long before now. They’re not uncomfortably warm, but just right. She thinks of all the people who made fun of him, calling him a robot, and her heart hurts a little. She wants to tell him he’s one of the warmest people she’s ever met, but she’s not sure she can make the words come out right in this moment. The last thing she wants is for him to think she’s getting all emotional and reading too much into a foot rub. That would be classic Annie, old Annie, not postgrad Annie with a real grown-up job and feet that really fucking hurt at the end of the day.

See, she can swear in her internal monologue because she’s an adult.

She’s managed to convince herself that it’s all in her head, but then she makes the mistake of looking at Abed just as he starts to put her foot down. The moment of eye contact seems to last uncomfortably long, and although his expression barely changes she can see him swallow. His hand lingers a little on her leg before jerking abruptly away. Her throat is dry. Abed doesn’t say anything, just looks back at the TV. Annie tucks her feet back towards herself and offers a quick “thank you.”

He looks back at her, eyes inscrutable. It takes him a moment to say “You’re welcome,” and it takes her another moment to break his gaze. The apartment feels suddenly small and very, very warm.

Annie makes a production of yawning and excuses herself to go brush her teeth.

Troy must be staying with his family tonight, she realizes with a twinge. She quickly texts him. _How are things?_

His response is immediate. _okayyy i guess. no yelling_

_Sometimes that’s the worst._

_yeah. on the bright side my cousins are here!!! :D_

_Oh, yay! :) Good night._

_pretty sure we’re going to stay up late playing games and catching up lmao but good night. I know how you like your schedule;)_

She types, _Hey, some of us have jobs_ , then erases it, feeling guilty. Then she remembers something. _Do you remember what movie it is that has a foot massage as a plot point? Pretty sure Abed has it but I don’t think I watched it with him._

_oh in pulp fiction?? we watched it to get ready for his bday that one time_

_Yes, that’s it! Thank you <3 Have fun with your cousins!_

_thanks, love you, see you tomorrow altho i may be a zombie haha_

The TV is still playing when she emerges from the bathroom, but Annie still pulls her seldom-used headphones from the drawer and plugs them into her laptop. She doesn’t bother checking on Netflix for obvious reasons, just googles around until she finds a stream of it.

The scene she had only vaguely remembered happens pretty early on. She shuts the laptop afterward, not bothering to watch the rest of the movie. She already has enough to think about.

_“I'm not sayin' he was right, but_

_you're sayin' a foot massage don't_

_mean nothing, and I'm sayin' it does._

_I've given a million ladies a million_

_foot massages and they all meant_

_somethin'. We act like they don't,_

_but they do. That's what's so fuckin'_

_cool about 'em. This sensual thing's_

_goin' on that nobody's talkin about,_

_but you know it and she knows it…”_

In the end, they don’t talk about it. Troy comes home full of complicated, extravagant ideas for Abed to try and code. Annie’s shoes stretch out. Things go back to what’s passing for normal these days.

Then the dean calls Abed, and Abed calls everybody else, and things descend into the sort of chaos that’s _truly_ normal for them. Now when Annie showers, she actually feels clean. Troy doesn’t have time to go home, and Abed doesn’t have time to watch _Friends._

But she’s a little more aware of his eyes watching her now, a little more conscious of the warmth of his skin when their arms brush. And this saving Greendale business is pretty hard work, she muses.

Just a foot rub might not cut it this time…

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally intended to have actual smuttiness but I ended up being more satisfied ending it here. Maybe if the mood strikes me I'll work up an epilogue of sorts.


End file.
